The floodgates are opening for vouchers, as Republicans accelerate their war on public schools.
South Carolina Republicans introduced voucher legislation, joining a long list of other red states.
COLUMBIA — Republican legislators are on track to create a private school choice program in South Carolina after years of failed attempts, driven by parental complaints about closed classrooms and virtual-only non-learning amid the pandemic.
Legislation providing parents up to $5,000 yearly toward private tuition costs will likely advance to the House floor Feb. 9, a day after it easily cleared a Ways and Means subcommittee.
“The unique circumstances of educating a child during the pandemic has taught us lessons,” Rep. Murrell Smith, chairman of the budget-writing committee and the main sponsor, said to open the one-hour meeting.
“The two things I think are very distinct and loud that we’ve heard is that parents want a voice in their children’s education, and they want a choice as to their children’s education,” the Sumter Republican said. “The time has come for those parents to have a choice right now. Kids who need the most help are victims of their economic circumstances as well as their geography.”
His proposal would set aside $75 million of the state’s surplus to create a three-year pilot program for up to 5,000 students annually in kindergarten through sixth grades. All children who qualify for Medicaid would be eligible for the tuition voucher, which in South Carolina means their parents earn at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or $46,000 for a family of three.
Up to 500 students who are children of active-duty military service members would also qualify.
If applications exceed the 5,000-student cap, the tuition aid would be doled out through a lottery…
This is not a silver bullet for education or for choice in education,” Murrell said. “This is a first step.”
The pilot is limited to elementary-age students, he said, since they’ve been most harmed by school closures.
The subcommittee’s vote brought applause from an audience filled with fifth- through eighth-grade students from a Catholic school in Florence.
GOP senators are working on their own voucher proposal, though more slowly. A Senate Education subcommittee could advance its version Feb. 9 after weeks of meetings.
As introduced, that proposal would provide parents roughly $7,000 yearly for private K-12 education through a phased-in program open to 5,000 students initially and expanding to all Medicaid-eligible students, potentially costing hundreds of millions of tax dollars. But senators have been working on amendments to limit the possible cost.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As I said 15 years ago If public schools don’t change they will perish!
fifteen years ago I remember thinking: if National Teachers’ Union leadership does not dramatically change its stance (and actual leadership) the teaching professions may well perish
I had full support from teachers union when I made systemic change in my public schools. not just any kind of change. Charters have no clue what to do.
Schools did change.
Through the pressure applied in legislation like NCLB and RTTT, schools had to shift to hyper-data to comply with measures invented by technocrats. Standardized tests were everything. The result was a less creative approach to education and test prep styles.
Then Republicans started complaining about closures and marks and invented, literally made up a CRT “crisis” in order to push an agenda that had otherwise been publicly unpopular.
If you think the new push for school choice has anything to do with public school inflexibility, you’re incorrect. It’s simply the new culture war battleground.
Because, in case you hadn’t noticed, the whole charters will lift all boats mentality coupled with an overeliance on data to achieve meaning failed.
am writing for the third time because site is screwed up
Do not assume change means the crap charters are putting out.. They don’t have clue.
When students return to in school what grade will they be in ? There is no solution to that problem in current system.
Must recognize grade levels are moot, letter grades are lies, Standardized test is beyond stupid and kids have been screwed for 200 years while politicians blame teachers because they have no clue.
This change requires smaller class size, more planning time, and a living wage for professional s. Does this sound like charters.?
try wholechildreform.con for more
Caplee, I apologize for misinterpreting your comment.
I agree with your more recent post. In fact, I’ve adjusted my high school courses to address what you noted.
I openly told my administrators that I didn’t care about our idiotic Marzano evaluation system. I also said that the standards were a guide and strict adherence to them was a fool’s errand.
Instead, I’ve gone to longer term research projects where I provide three options for a student product.
Student engagement has noticeably increased in the first month over last semester.
Of course, I am lucky that I have administrators who encourage me to try this. But I have friends in other districts who can’t do this.
Off topic, but hey, look, it’s the Governor of NY, with no mask on, in a meeting in a small conference room with a bunch of other adults with no mask!
But let’s continue to require children, at magnitudes less risk than Hochul, to wear masks all day at school.
It’s “magnitudes less risk”. If anything schools are magnitudes more riskier than that meeting.
Citation?
Yes, please give us a citation for your statement.
Duane,
Thanks for challenging this. As far as I know, public schools are NOT allowed to mandate COVID vaccines for all students, and the majority of the youngest students are not even fully vaccinated.
I would not be surprised if everyone at that meeting pictured here is fully vaxxed, with a booster. Not to mention that those adults are not required to be in crowded rooms of 30+ people, some of whom are not vaccinated, for 7 hours a day, 5 days/week.
It is interesting that the anti-mask folks like flerp are always fighting mask mandates in public schools and not in the privileged universities and colleges that have mask mandates.
I wonder if the colleges that those people graduated from and the ones their children attend have mask mandates. If not, they are hypocrites, just looking to find some reason to attack public schools and invoking a concern with students. And that concern would feel less hypocritical if it didn’t seem to stop with them not having to wear a mask. Putting them in overcrowded classrooms in schools that need serious repair and are so underfunded that many important services are cut is fine. As long as they don’t have a wear a mask because caring about mask wearing is a sign that folks really care about a child’s well-being.